i think ive been waiting for this exact joke for years listening to mbmbam (the only reason i know who the other gallagher brothers are) and it was so good
I can't believe such little time was given to Monkey Magic. Maybe it wasn't as big in America, but I feel it was a pretty iconic kids show down here in Australia. Everything Justin described about angering heaven, eating all their fruit and pissing on Buddha's hand was the first episode or two.
And then when they released the DVDs, they got the English cast back to dub some of the decidely non-kid friendly episodes that they didn't originally westernise. Like when the gang arrives at a town where everyone is pretending to be bad at maths, because a nearby demon is killing smart kids to feed to her demon son to make him better at maths. Although I guess it works out in the end because she repents and prays all the kids back to life.
One correction, it is available on Xbox store; the marketplace that closed was only the store you access on a physical 360. Backwards compatible Xbox and 360 games can still be purchased for current console. It’s also steam deck verified.
Among all the Odyssey comparisons, I'm utterly shocked I didn't hear Plante mention the best Journey adaptation, fittingly called called A Chinese Odyssey, a two part film series directed by Jeffrey Lau and co-directed and starring Stephen Chow. It's absolute peak 90s Hong Kong Cinema, could not recommend it enough
A third one got made in 2016 and then Stephen Chow did ANOTHER series of Journey to the West movies in 2013/2017. It really is crazy how many adaptations there are of it!
I didn't see the 2016 one, I heard it was not nearly on the same level. Didn't hear about the new series he did though. Dude is incredibly prolific lol
A lot of people grew up on the Journey to the West TV dramas. I'm Vietnamese-American and my grandma and I would watch the programme through poorly dubbed Vietnamese. The game even adapts some of the music for nostalgia.
Haven't played the game yet. The developers sound like real pieces of shit so I don't want to give them money
I can’t remember if y’all have tried core keeper, but it just released its 1.0.0 update this week, and it’s been really fun. They added a magic and summon class, and redid some stuff, but it’s been a blast to play. It’s especially fun if you play with friends.
So glad you guys mentioned the Odyssey... as soon as the back half started and Justin was trying to find an analog in American Lit, I thought of the Odyssey. The discrepancy, to my mind, is that there is this almost unbroken, centrally sanctioned canon in Chinese history / culture, and there isn't one for "Western" culture. My parents' generation (I'm zero gen Taiwanese American) would say something like, "Of course there's nothing in American culture, what's your 200 years to our 5000 years of history? etc etc". Which is problematic, but has a grain of truth, particularly due to the historically insular nature of Chinese culture -- it's sometimes said that the Mongols conquered China only to have their culture be subjugated by the Chinese.
I guess "centrally sanctioned" is an ongoing running theme for the Middle Kingdom...
I'm somewhat skeptical that "WuKong" means, "monkey", it could be that it's come to mean that, with the most famous character bearing that name being this mythical monkey. The characters mean something like "comprehend-emptiness".
Would you guys be willing to try out the new Risk of Rain 2 DLC? This probably wouldn't be a full besties, but maybe a good Resties topic. The reviews on steam are mostly Negative, but I think it is quite good and wonder what y'all's thoughts are.
I actually just tried it for the first time last night. I was only able to get in one run with the seeker, but it was pretty fun, and I enjoyed their ally healing and movement ability. I know a lot of people have run into a lot of game breaking bugs, but I had no issues and it was a blast.
So my favorite Journey to the West adaptation is actually the musical Monkey (music by Damon Albarn and art by Jamie Hewlett from the gorillaz). I've never seen it, I don't speak Mandarin, but the feeling I get from it is just 👌 Monkey Bee has a music video, it gets stuck in my head a tonnnn
slightly surprised you didn't mention the opera monkey: journey to the west! its by damon albarn (lead singer of blur) and jamie hewlett (creator of tank girl) who are the creators of the band gorillaz. its in chinese and mixes traditional chinese and modern electric instruments, and it fucks so hard. i think griffin would be especially into it! (it was one of their first projects after the first gorillaz hiatus so it was my introduction to journey to the west lol)
I've been playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor again. They've added new progression hooks with varying dive lengths. Worth going back to if you liked the game but felt it was lacking legs.
To set the record straight on the name "Sun Wukong" - the "Sun" part is kind of a pun as it sounds like a word for a monkey, but it is written like a common surname "Sun" which also means "descendent". Wukong means "awakened to emptiness" (common translation), as in, he is aware of the fundamental nature of reality as being the void. "Son" doesn't form the same pun in Japanese; it's just the Japanese pronunciation of the character (as "Goku" is the reading of Wukong" and it doesn't semantically work the same, but the characters still mean "awaken/realize" and "empty").
For other adaptations, I read it as Monkey: Folk Novel of China (an abridged version) in Chinese literature in college, which I thought was pretty good. The recent Monkey King movie series is pretty fun, too.
Question for The Besties for their upcoming episode on Star Wars Outlaws. If someone is in the mood to play a large open-world Ubisoft game, but they only have the time to play one, which recent release would you recommend: "Avatar Frontiers of Pandora" or "Star Wars Outlaws"?
Gwent from Witcher 3 is one of my favorite in game minigames of all time. I love it so much and how simple it is that when I tried the standalone version they made I uninstalled it when I saw all the mechanics they added
Question for everyone. What's it like reviewing a video game? Do you keep notes while playing? Do you have a different mind set when reviewing a game vs just playing it for fun? I've love to know more about the process. Thanks for being my favourite podcast.
Russ, the Gallagher joke might be the best joke anyone have ever made on the podcast. That was incredible
I don't know what this says about me, but I didn't realize they WEREN'T talking about the hammer Gallagher until Russ made that joke
i think ive been waiting for this exact joke for years listening to mbmbam (the only reason i know who the other gallagher brothers are) and it was so good
This, but also, I laughed even harder at
"You're my Wonderwaaalllll"
"2!"
I can't believe such little time was given to Monkey Magic. Maybe it wasn't as big in America, but I feel it was a pretty iconic kids show down here in Australia. Everything Justin described about angering heaven, eating all their fruit and pissing on Buddha's hand was the first episode or two.
And then when they released the DVDs, they got the English cast back to dub some of the decidely non-kid friendly episodes that they didn't originally westernise. Like when the gang arrives at a town where everyone is pretending to be bad at maths, because a nearby demon is killing smart kids to feed to her demon son to make him better at maths. Although I guess it works out in the end because she repents and prays all the kids back to life.
That's awesome. It was NOT popular in the US so that's probably why they glossed over it.
Griffin saying the show was bespoke just for me, and then saying my name was a wild experience
Big fan of Enslaved.
One correction, it is available on Xbox store; the marketplace that closed was only the store you access on a physical 360. Backwards compatible Xbox and 360 games can still be purchased for current console. It’s also steam deck verified.
Among all the Odyssey comparisons, I'm utterly shocked I didn't hear Plante mention the best Journey adaptation, fittingly called called A Chinese Odyssey, a two part film series directed by Jeffrey Lau and co-directed and starring Stephen Chow. It's absolute peak 90s Hong Kong Cinema, could not recommend it enough
Great rec!
A third one got made in 2016 and then Stephen Chow did ANOTHER series of Journey to the West movies in 2013/2017. It really is crazy how many adaptations there are of it!
I didn't see the 2016 one, I heard it was not nearly on the same level. Didn't hear about the new series he did though. Dude is incredibly prolific lol
A lot of people grew up on the Journey to the West TV dramas. I'm Vietnamese-American and my grandma and I would watch the programme through poorly dubbed Vietnamese. The game even adapts some of the music for nostalgia.
Haven't played the game yet. The developers sound like real pieces of shit so I don't want to give them money
I can’t remember if y’all have tried core keeper, but it just released its 1.0.0 update this week, and it’s been really fun. They added a magic and summon class, and redid some stuff, but it’s been a blast to play. It’s especially fun if you play with friends.
So glad you guys mentioned the Odyssey... as soon as the back half started and Justin was trying to find an analog in American Lit, I thought of the Odyssey. The discrepancy, to my mind, is that there is this almost unbroken, centrally sanctioned canon in Chinese history / culture, and there isn't one for "Western" culture. My parents' generation (I'm zero gen Taiwanese American) would say something like, "Of course there's nothing in American culture, what's your 200 years to our 5000 years of history? etc etc". Which is problematic, but has a grain of truth, particularly due to the historically insular nature of Chinese culture -- it's sometimes said that the Mongols conquered China only to have their culture be subjugated by the Chinese.
I guess "centrally sanctioned" is an ongoing running theme for the Middle Kingdom...
I'm somewhat skeptical that "WuKong" means, "monkey", it could be that it's come to mean that, with the most famous character bearing that name being this mythical monkey. The characters mean something like "comprehend-emptiness".
Would you guys be willing to try out the new Risk of Rain 2 DLC? This probably wouldn't be a full besties, but maybe a good Resties topic. The reviews on steam are mostly Negative, but I think it is quite good and wonder what y'all's thoughts are.
We have a bunch of new releases over the next few months, but potentially later this year!
I actually just tried it for the first time last night. I was only able to get in one run with the seeker, but it was pretty fun, and I enjoyed their ally healing and movement ability. I know a lot of people have run into a lot of game breaking bugs, but I had no issues and it was a blast.
So my favorite Journey to the West adaptation is actually the musical Monkey (music by Damon Albarn and art by Jamie Hewlett from the gorillaz). I've never seen it, I don't speak Mandarin, but the feeling I get from it is just 👌 Monkey Bee has a music video, it gets stuck in my head a tonnnn
slightly surprised you didn't mention the opera monkey: journey to the west! its by damon albarn (lead singer of blur) and jamie hewlett (creator of tank girl) who are the creators of the band gorillaz. its in chinese and mixes traditional chinese and modern electric instruments, and it fucks so hard. i think griffin would be especially into it! (it was one of their first projects after the first gorillaz hiatus so it was my introduction to journey to the west lol)
I've been playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor again. They've added new progression hooks with varying dive lengths. Worth going back to if you liked the game but felt it was lacking legs.
To set the record straight on the name "Sun Wukong" - the "Sun" part is kind of a pun as it sounds like a word for a monkey, but it is written like a common surname "Sun" which also means "descendent". Wukong means "awakened to emptiness" (common translation), as in, he is aware of the fundamental nature of reality as being the void. "Son" doesn't form the same pun in Japanese; it's just the Japanese pronunciation of the character (as "Goku" is the reading of Wukong" and it doesn't semantically work the same, but the characters still mean "awaken/realize" and "empty").
For other adaptations, I read it as Monkey: Folk Novel of China (an abridged version) in Chinese literature in college, which I thought was pretty good. The recent Monkey King movie series is pretty fun, too.
Question for The Besties for their upcoming episode on Star Wars Outlaws. If someone is in the mood to play a large open-world Ubisoft game, but they only have the time to play one, which recent release would you recommend: "Avatar Frontiers of Pandora" or "Star Wars Outlaws"?
Gwent from Witcher 3 is one of my favorite in game minigames of all time. I love it so much and how simple it is that when I tried the standalone version they made I uninstalled it when I saw all the mechanics they added
Question for everyone. What's it like reviewing a video game? Do you keep notes while playing? Do you have a different mind set when reviewing a game vs just playing it for fun? I've love to know more about the process. Thanks for being my favourite podcast.